Hyderabad: Municipal minister K.T. Rama Rao on Tuesday expressed displeasure at the GHMC engineering wing for the badly damaged city roads.
He said, “The poor maintenance of roads by the engineering department has degraded the state government. The good job done by other state agencies is lost due to the bad shape of roads. Is it rocket science to maintain roads? All it needs is funds, manpower and sustainable material, all of which the department has. There is a lack of seriousness among the engineering staff, the department only wakes up whenever there is an incident.”
On Tuesday the minister held a review meeting with the chief engineer of GHMC and staff from the zonal level, in the presence of the mayor, commissioner and municipal principal secretary M.G. Gopal.
Mr Rao said, “Hyderabad had received more rain in previous years. Whenever it rains, the roads deteriorate. Why is there no solution? What has the staff been doing for so long? There is no seriousness among the staff, if this continues officers will be suspended for bad roads.”
Engineering officers said potholes were being filled from time to time. The department would work out strategies to deal with damaged roads, they said.
But Mr Rao was not to be convinced.
He said, “Why does the department propose alternatives after the damage is done? Why has there been no proper planning in advance? The GHMC engineering wing is always in denial mode. If you don’t accept the officers’ inefficiency then the problems cannot be resolved. The department has to accept that it has failed.”
GHMC commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy too expressed his anger and said that the engineering staff had not been checking the quality of roads built by contractors. Mr Rao pointed at corruption among officers while allocating contracts. He wanted potholes to be fixed immediately.
2,000 complaints filed on potholes
Hyderabad’s third biggest problem is potholes. The My GHMC app has received over 2,000 complaints on potholes alone. Complaints about non-functional streetlights and manholes took the first two spots.
The GHMC claims it has identified 54,547 potholes, and attended to 53,113 of them. However there appear to be thousands of potholes that it has not bothered about. It is learnt that the potholes were dumped with bituminous tar material as a temporary measure instead of being filled methodologically to ensure that the repairs last.
On many arterial roads, gravel can be found spread around. When it rains, the mix of gravel, potholes filled with water and traffic makes it perilous to drive.
Officials claimed it would take two business days to fill a pothole. Some potholes, because of their location in the road or proximity to other infrastructure such as manhole covers, are more difficult to fill and, consequently take longer.
